12 January 2008

When we use the Interweb, we surf naked. Nothing is left unseen and we lose our privacy in its entirety. There is an SMS service in Australia called Bongo (199BONGO) which can answer any question or tell you about any person, so it claims.

Bongo's website says to have a massive data base, and after doing a check on me, I was somewhat surprised with the responding SMS...

"Bongo knows that Zac has a very dirty sense of humour, he has never been much of a morning person and he will be coming into money this year."

People who know me fairly well would say this is quite surprisingly true. This ex employee claims that is it simply done with a Google search. A quick search through social networking, work, school, university and clubs etc. could reveal such information.

My Facebook page would reveal the first two points in the message, that is if they weren't generic. And as to coming into money this year, the Monash University Scholarship page reveals that I'm expecting a payment in a few months.

The key note here is not that your information is available but rather how quickly it can be accessed.

08 January 2008

Last time, I commented on what a great campaign Mozilla ran but this time I feel differently. The video here is lacking. It looks cheaply done, isn't funny, controversial or even interesting. With the exception of Chocolate Rain weblebrity, Tay Zonday, the clip doesn't have anything that gives me the urge to spread this so called viral.

I expected so much more... but that quick brown fox may yet jump the lazy dog. If you go to the website, you need a username and password to get in. Is this a mistake on the website design or something incredibly brilliant to get blogger's like myself talking? It certainly would help fight the boredom trying to crack the puzzle.

Failed campaign or mystery in the works?

Edit: Turns out it was somewhat of a failed campaign. The website was launched prematurely and the video was not approved by Mozilla. The website has since had restricted access placed over it, but perhaps they could still turn this into something?